Even in wartime, the golden age of Hollywood roared throughout the 1940s. Many of the best and most successful American films of the time were patriotic and unifying—and the 1940s also stands out as a time of cinematic experimentation on a grand scale. There's no shortage here of films that have long been regarded as among the finest landmark movies in history.

The technological leaps of the years prior, like sound and Technicolor, enhanced great filmmakers' palettes. As the era began, over a decade had passed since the dawn of the talkies, and filmmaking—and watching films, for that matter—were altogether revolutionized. Audiences flocked to theaters throughout the 1940s, and many of the era's greatest hold up as formidable art and entertainment.

13 'Casablanca' (1942)

Directed by Michael Curtiz

Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman are cinema's most famous romantic pairing in Michael Curtiz's Oscar-winning masterwork. The ever-quoted, snappy and dramatically potent script by Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch is widely considered the best screenplay ever written.

Casablanca is nearly 80 years old, and its ability to thrill and to tug at the heartstrings remains intact. In the central love triangle exists three good people with desires that simply aren't all possible. It resonates so much because in the end, all these people make a choice for the greater good. Casablanca is about somewhat cynical people hardened by war, and yet love wins in the end. Who couldn't fall for such a story?

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12 'It's a Wonderful Life' (1946)

Directed by Frank Capra

The gold standard for holiday films wasn't a huge hit in its day, but over time, Frank Capra's romantic fantasy dramedy has become widely recognized as perhaps the ultimate feel-good, inspirational film. It's hardly fluff though, with a dark plot inspired by Dickens that sees a good-natured everyman (Jimmy Stewart) rethinking suicide after a supernatural encounter.

Co-starring Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore and Henry Travers, It's a Wonderful Life ultimately boils down to this simple universal truth: no man is a failure if he has friends. This is obviously, also, the ultimate Christmas movie.

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11 'Notorious' (1946)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Casablanca is certainly the romantic 1940s movie Ingrid Bergman is best known for, but this Alfred Hitchcock stunner is another crown jewel in the Hollywood icon's legacy. In Notorious, Bergman plays the infamous daughter of a Nazi, seeking to clear her notorious rep by infiltrating a web of remnant conspirators in South America.

Notorious is Hitchcock's most romantic movie, and easily one of his top-shelf greatest. Bergman's romantic chemistry with Cary Grant is psychologically gripping, and ultimately quite affecting. Ben Hecht's screenplay (among the WGA's picks of the 101 greatest ever written) has aged in reverse. The biggest the action gets is a final set piece where four people walk down some stairs, but damned if it isn't one of the most gripping staircase descents you'll ever experience.

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10 'The Third Man' (1949)

Directed by Carol Reed

Carol Reed's thriller stars Joseph Cotten as a pulp novelist examining a mysterious death in post-war Vienna. Alida Valli co-stars as a grieving girlfriend, about a decade before the Polish-Italian star made a memorable appearance in French horror film Eyes Without a Face.

It's something of a cinephile in-joke that The Third Man is sometimes credited to Orson Welles in the same way Poltergeist is mistakenly credited to Steven Spielberg. Welles didn't make The Third Man, though he is unforgettable as villain Harry Lime. The Third Man is often named among the greatest British films ever made. It certainly belongs on any list of all-time great thrillers.

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9 'The Lady Eve' (1941)

Directed by Preston Sturges

The '30s and '40s were a golden age of sophisticated, sexy screwball comedies. Along with the brilliant likes of It Happened One Night, His Girl Friday and Trouble in Paradise, Preston Sturges' The Lady Eve is one of the very best.

Barbara Stanwyck (at one time in the '40s the highest-paid woman in America) is at her best as a card shark who falls for a naive ale heir (Henry Fonda). Early in the film, a long, unbroken take of her running her hands through his hair, teasing him, then falling in love, is an all-timer.

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8 'Pinocchio' (1940)

Directed by Ben Sharpsteen and Hamilton Luske

Walt Disney's second animated feature had a lot to live up to in the wake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Follow-up Pinocchio is technically and artistically a superior film, with more confident storytelling and some of the finest hand-drawn animation ever.

Pinocchio didn't initially see the same level of box-office success of its record-breaking predecessor due to its release at the dawn of World War II, but with time its reputation as one of Disney's crowning achievements has only grown. It remains far and away the best adaptation of Carlo Collodi's source material. Guillermo del Toro's adaptation of the novel hit theaters in late 2022 and went on to Oscar glory. Avoid the remake of the animated classic at all costs.

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7 'Double Indemnity' (1944)

Directed by Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder's taut, shadowy and lurid thriller is the ultimate film noir. Barbara Stanwyck (in a bad wig that actually adds to her character's trashy nature) is a ruthless femme fatale who seduces an insurance salesman (Fred MacMurray) in order to off her husband. This is the first mainstream Hollywood picture where the main characters are murderers. It's still an unsettling viewing experience.

Other essential noirs of the decade include The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep and Out of the Past. But from head to toe, this is the greatest and most influential. A masterpiece of unnerving suspense, Double Indemnity is a key film in showing the incomparable Wilder's mastery across all genres.

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6 'La Belle et La Bête' aka 'Beauty and the Beast' (1946)

Directed by Jean Cocteau

A fantasy benchmark that had a significant impact on France's economy post-war. Jean Cocteau's La Belle et La Bête adapts Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve's book with extraordinary practical effects that won't age, eye-popping costumes and earnest heat.

This is one of the most extraordinarily romantic films ever made, and the fantasy visuals have influenced everything from the work of Guillermo del Toro to, most recognizably, much of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. La Belle et La Bête excels as fantasy filmmaking that fills you with wonder and romantic storytelling that sweeps you off your feet.

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5 'The Best Years of Our Lives' (1946)

Directed by William Wyler

The weight of war is examined the 1946 winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture. Upon returning from active service, William Wyler directed a human drama about three United States servicemen readjusting to civilian life. It's a deeply humane, quietly but profoundly moviing film full of top-notch performances. The cast includes Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Fredric March, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo and Harold Russell.

The Best Years of Our Lives was an astounding box-office and critical success in its time (seven Oscar wins and eight nominations). It holds up for so many reasons, not least of all because so many scenes feel plucked from reality, with little distance between filmmaker, actors and real life.

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4 'The Lost Weekend' (1945)

Directed by Billy Wilder

As was previously stated on this list, Billy Wilder was a master of genres. A year after he made the defining noir crime film, he made a piercing alcoholism drama that was ahead of its time. This is a genuinely groundbreaking film, exploring a challenging but highly relevant topic with unprecedented depth and artistry for its time.

In Academy Awards darling The Lost Weekend, Ray Milland stars as a writer who gets off the wagon and proceeds on a weekend of alcoholic demoralization. Jane Wyman co-stars. Along with Marty and Parasite, this is one of only three films to win the Oscar for Best Picture as well as Cannes' Palme d'Or.

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3 'Rope' (1948)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

A film underappreciated in its day that endures as one of the Master of Suspense's crown jewels, Rope was an experiment ahead of its time. Loosely inspired by real events, the thriller is about two prep school students who murder a boy they deem inferior, just to see if they can get away with it. The film is meant to look like one long take (there are 10 hidden cuts). For decades, many observers regarded it as something of a failed experiment (Roger Ebert gave it two stars). It holds up strikingly, powerfully well these days.

The central technical conceit of Rope is impressive, especially as it weaves in terrific performances from Jimmy Stewart, John Dall and Farley Granger, but the moment that makes it transcend comes at the very end. Stewart's private eye delivers a scathing condemnation of the villains' actions, and their entire worldview. It's a thinly veiled, sobering and thunderous response to the Third Reich's atrocities mere years prior.

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2 'The Grapes of Wrath' (1940)

Directed by John Ford

Henry Fonda delivers arguably his best-known performance in John Ford's lauded adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel, about the struggles of a family of Oklahoma sharecroppers in the midst of the Great Depression. The book won the Pulitzer Prize; the beloved film adaptaiton won Academy Awards for its adapted screenplay and Jane Darwell's emotionally shattering supporting turn.

Despite losing the Oscar for Best Picture to Hithcock's timeless Rebecca, The Grapes of Wrath endures as essential American film history. Ford himself won back-to-back directing Oscars for Grapes and How Green Was My Valley (out of four total career wins, an unbeaten record to date).

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1 'Citizen Kane' (1941)

Directed by Orson Welles

At the age of 26, Orson Welles wrote and directed a drama that's often named the greatest film ever made. He also stars as tycoon Charles Foster Kane, loosely based on real-life icon William Randolph Hearst. The icon famously and perhaps unsurprisingly, absolutely loathed this movie. Mercury Theatre players round out the lively supporting cast in telling a story that still has considerable bite.

Citizen Kane is a deeply American movie about wealth, idealism and power. The themes will remain timeless as long as human nature is a thing, and the filmmaking of Citizen Kane (including deep-focus shots, crackling editing and camera work) is still awe-inspiring. For anyone who loves the medium of film, it's deeply exhilarating stuff.

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